There are few games that can consume weeks and months of my life quite like old DF can. Eve Online is pretty much the only game that has had as long lasting an impact on me, the Dark Souls series being the latest of the attention grabbers.

Of course - we'll have to give it another 6-12 months or so to iron out all the crazy bugs which will no doubt be brought in on this patch...

Dwarf Fortress is one of those games that I rediscover every two years or so. Then I play until I am hungry, sleep-deprived, cognitively impaired and disgusted with the state of my colony and myself. After a few sessions like that I give up until I have forgotten the hardship.

Also it is perfectly possible to dream Dwarf Fortress style - or so I have heard.

That would ruin the appeal I think. DF is the worlds most accurate autism simulator. You know what you want the dwarves to do, but communication is difficult because they operate seemingly on a different set of rules than you and everything seems arbitrary and things that should be easy instead seem to be terribly complicated.

Once you understand how the UI works it's not nearly so bad, but I would not recommend anybody just jump into the game without having a tutorial and manual open and ready. There is little about it that is intuitive or obvious, and the game does not make it easy to explore the UI to discover functionality, nor does it give you a chance to. Tiny things hidden way deep in the menus are important right from the start, like mining the correct kind of rocks to create your starter stone furniture.

That would ruin the appeal I think. DF is the worlds most accurate autism simulator.

As an autistic person, I'm not a big fan of that comparison.

A lot of people (not necessarily you) defend the interface as being part and parcel of the game's legendary difficulty. I think that's facile. The difficulty comes (or should come) from tantrums, lack of resources, zombie elephants, sudden horrible pick-a-part monsters, accidental lava floods, and all the other fun, emergent, characterful things that make Dwarf Fortress so unique. The interface ought to get out of the way and let you march smoothly onwards to complete, ignominous screwage without holdups or barriers.

Basically, I should be losing because of the game, not because of the interface.

If you want to get used to the interface you can start on something with a similar interface but less overwhelming scope, such as nethack or vi.

The really bad part of the interface (job management) can be improved with a third party application called Dwarf Therapist. Macros can also be very time / wrist saving. I usually set one up for building down stairwells and another for mass selecting items from a list.

The only game that reminds me of DF but with a good interface is called Banished and it's amazing.